


like breathing was easy

by jadeddiva



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angsty McAngsty, Ash Tyler is a good man, F/M, Michael Burnham Needs a Hug, Michael is both thirsty and sad and i said what i said, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24885736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: She needs this.  She needs this comfort, this moment where no one is demanding anything of her.  She needs this moment where the only thing that matters is the way Ash’s knuckles trace the notches of her spine.Michael and Ash before Essof V. Spoilers for everything up to 2x10 The Red Angel.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Ash Tyler | Voq
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	like breathing was easy

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! It’s been a minute. I didn’t expect to fall so hard but here we are. Thanks much to Amy for tolerating what amounts to disjointed ramblings about these two. First fic for this new ship, so I feel like I’m still trying to figure out voices but oh, I love Michael Burnham. 
> 
> Title is from ‘Angels’ by the XX because there was just this moment at some point in season 2 where the refrain popped into my head and it has stayed ever since when I think about these two.

**like breathing was easy**

There is a point between when her brother opens his mouth and closes it that Michael realizes she didn’t hear a word he said.

The sentiment is obvious: something about the gravity of this mission, the need for her to risk her life for the good of the many (he is very much his father’s son, even if he would argue logical inconsistencies with the statement). All around the table her colleagues look at her with troubled eyes as they make plans but she doesn’t hear a word they say. 

All that she hears are the last words she said to Ash. 

Her stomach knots, then knots again, at the very idea that her last words spoken to him would be in anger (she cannot live with herself, however long she now has, knowing that). 

(He deserves more than that). 

The briefing ends, the crowd disperses, someone brushes their hand down her arm - Dr. Culber, probably, or maybe Admiral Cornwall - but it doesn’t matter who touched her or why. Soon she’ll be transported down to the surface and everything will start. 

(She cannot live with herself.)

She can’t change the fact that he’s part of Section 31 now, just like she can’t change the fact that her parents worked for Section 31, just like how she can’t change the fact that working for Section 31 ultimately led to their deaths. Feeling helpless doesn’t excuse her accusations and her anger (she’s always let her emotions slip through, always felt like it was impossible to keep them inside when he’s around). 

She ignores the worried looks, nods her head when Spock tells her something, slips out of Pike’s ready room and into the turbolift, practically on autopilot. 

(He deserves more than that.)

...

_I think you put it somewhere where you knew it would be okay._

Ash covers her hands with his own, reminds her that she is not alone, that she has him. He sounds a little bit shattered, and she’s reminded that while she’s not the one that broke him, she’s also the one who refused to help him pick up the pieces.

(His kiss tastes like the salt from her tears, and maybe his too, and she doesn’t hate it, just presses her fingers against his jaw, pulls him closer, desperate to keep that taste on her tongue). 

_..._

Michael has spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking about kisses. 

She had thought about all of the human things she seemed to miss growing up on Vulcan. She told herself, however, that none of those things mattered while on the _Shenzhou_. She told herself that none of those things matters while in prison. 

Everything changed on _Discovery (_ everything changed with Ash).

Before they slipped into that other universe (before Voq), they were just two people caught in the bright days of a new relationship, moments stolen before-between-after shifts (before he left) that they spent learning about each other, learning about what they could be together. Those moments involved kisses, and touches, and the press of bodies trying to ease the burning tension between them. 

Michael replayed those moments often, first wondering if there was something she missed about Voq, then because she missed Ash, until everything became tangled. She’s still not sure how to pull apart the many threads, but she knows this: everything about the movement of his hands, his lips, the peace she feels when she is with him - she has missed all of this more than she can possibly quantify, and that knowledge is so painful it’s like a dull ache in her chest. 

...

Outside of this room, she knows that there are people going about their daily routines. Stamets and Reno are working with Tilly to build the trap that will catch her future self so that they can find out once and for all. The others are pulling together the rest of this crazy plan, lining up the pieces just right so that when the trap is sprung, everything will fall into place and they will finally receive the answers to their important questions. 

But, here, it’s just the two of them.

His gaze is hooded as he looks down at her, taking her in, and she tucks her head back into the crook of his neck even though she knows he isn’t assessing her like her brother or father or captain might. He’s just _looking_ at her, like she’s something special and it always surprises her, just a little, seeing how much he cares.

Ash takes a deep breath and they are pressed so close that she feels the way his ribs expand against her own, follows the movement of his chest as her body rises and falls along with him. Her hands curl around his shoulder blades, feeling him tense beneath her finger tips (she wants to dig her fingers in deeper and cling to him, wants to bury her face in his neck and count the space between breaths, between heart beats).

Michael presses her nose against the collar of his uniform, enjoying the tiny intake of his breath at the movement. He smells the same: standard-issue deodorant, standard-issue laundry detergent, innocuous but comforting in the familiarity. 

She takes a moment to register how good it feels to have his arms around her, have him rock her slowly (she has also offered him comfort, has let him rest his head on her shoulder and find peace in her arms, and she has not forgotten the feeling of his ragged breath against her neck -)

She needs this. She needs this comfort, this moment where no one is demanding anything of her. She needs this moment where the only thing that matters is the way Ash’s knuckles trace the notches of her spine, the movement simultaneously reassuring and charged, sending shocks through her with the movement of his hand up, soothing on the way back down.

“How long until…?” Ash asks.

His face is so close to hers that she can’t help but angle her chin upwards, can’t help but move her hands to rest on his collar. Her fingers trace the space where the gold thread stops and the dark blue begins in an attempt to gather herself and her scattered thoughts.

It’s the opposite of helpful since she can feel his collarbone, the sweep of his shoulders, and the part of her that _wants_ is becoming more and more difficult to control.

“Lieutenant Commander Stamets has to finish modifications on the phase discriminators for the containment field. He estimates it will take about an hour,” Michael replies, wincing at how she sounds both formal and breathless. “He’ll page me when it’s done.”

As she talks, he dips his head to keep his face close to hers and her lips brush against his. When she finishes, it’s practically muscle memory to lean back in to kiss him, swallowing any response he might have. Ash kisses her back, soft yet eager, his hand shifting to press her just a bit closer (if that’s even possible). 

She’s always enjoyed how their bodies fit together.

Michael’s not good with talking to people, let alone physical proximity, but it’s never been a problem with him (she’s forgotten how touching him was something she never had to overthink, how easily they moved from touching hands to kissing to more). There’s always been that spark between them, fanned into flame and then left to smolder, growing each day even if they never talk. 

Now, she wishes they had talked, and sooner, and more, and maybe she wouldn’t feel so desperate. She feels like she does when he left - restless and cautious, like she’s making the wrong decision, like she’s overthinking things. 

It doesn’t help that she’s spent so much time in the past few weeks wrapped up in finding her brother, following the breadcrumbs that the ~~Red Angel~~ she left them, that she has barely had time to sleep, let alone seek him out.

It doesn’t help that they’ve been carefully orbiting each other, forced apart by the pull of duty and paths barely crossing. Instead, everything has been reduced to standing close but not too close on the bridge, eyes always making contact yet never being in the mess at the same time so that maybe she could have the too-sharp pleasure of being near him without having to revisit just how she felt when he left.

Michael never thought she’d have this (she never thought she’d have him back). The acknowledgement of that thought sends a wave of pain through her because it’s not fair, how well they fit together and how everything seems designed to keep them apart. 

...

(She remembers Pike taking her to the mess and he was there, dressed all in black, hair longer than she remembered and hunched over his PADD and how her heart flipped over when she saw him, even if she was angry he wasn’t telling her everything, because _Ash was back_.)

...

Eventually, the kisses stop and they slide into silence, releasing their hold on each other but keeping their hands joined. Michael leans forward until her forehead rests against his. 

People touch her these days in a way they never did before but touches differ by orders of magnitude when she compares someone patting her on the shoulder and the feel of Ash’s skin against hers (her fingers rest against his neck, feeling his pulse point, alternating between enamoured and confused because she wants to feel more of him but she also is so very scared).

(She cannot live with herself.)

“I missed you,” she says, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I missed talking to you and seeing you on the bridge and I missed being with you like this, where I don’t have to speak and you’re just _there_.”

Ash sighs, brushes his lips against her forehead before he steps back and Michael’s breath catches in her throat at the surprisingly familiar intimacy of it.

“I missed you too,” he says. “I wanted to tell you how much I missed you, back when I was on Qo’noS, but I couldn’t.”

“Of course.”

“When I was assigned to the _Discovery_ I wanted - I thought maybe we could fix things. Be friends. I didn’t think I’d have more.”

“Ash - “ Michael starts, ready to tell him that it’s her fault, that she was foolish, that she wasn’t thinking clearly, that he didn’t have to do this alone but she bites back her words because she doesn’t really believe that, and she’s not about to lie to him. She knows that it’s hard work to figure out where you’re supposed to be, and who you are, because she never really stopped doing it once she left prison.

Judging by the look on Ash’s face, he doesn’t want to hear her meaningless apologies either.

“You were right,” he says, squeezing her hand in his. “You were absolutely right that I needed to figure myself out. And even if I wasn’t with you - even if I was trying to be something I couldn’t be, not fully, not in the way L’Rell needed me to be - being away from you gave me time to work through some things.”

There’s something in his eyes that makes her want to cry, and she’s not sure if it’s the vulnerability that he’s shown around her the day they met, or something forged through blood and sweat on Qo’noS. Whatever it is, the part of her that loves him (has always loved him, and always will) shake, just a little, so she tightens her grip on his hands, shifts a little closer.

“I wish I had found some sort of middle ground. Some way that I could still - that we - “ Michael falters, unsure of how to finish her sentence. 

“I know.” 

“I wanted to find you earlier, talk to you, but - “

“Hey,” he says, taking her hands in his. “I know you. It’s okay.”

Michael takes a deep breath, looks at the ceiling. She bites her lip, tries to stop the tears that threaten because he does know her. He’s the one that slowly and systematically helped her take down all of those barriers she kept around herself and her heart, just by the virtue of _loving_ her. 

“I know,” she says, and the tears are coming anyway, she can’t help it. “I know you know me, and I know you, but ever since you came back on this ship, I knew I was ready, and I think I knew you were ready too. I just - I was always torn between how much I wanted to be with you and being scared because I’d never felt that way before. What we had, before things got complicated - that was all I wanted, and then all of the sudden things changed and I didn’t know if things could go back to the way they were.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t be like it was.” Ash lifts a hand to gently brush a tear she didn’t even know she had away from her cheek. “We’re not the same people, and what we have between us shouldn’t have to stay the same.”

“I know that. But there’s so much you don’t tell me and I believe in you - I know you’re a good man. I just - “

He drops her hands, wraps his arms around her and she cries onto the dark blue of his shoulder. She cries for lost time and lost opportunity, for all the days she went to be alone when she could have had Ash. She cries because Sarek is right when he told her not to regret loving someone because she did regret it, and then she didn’t, and she regrets not knowing herself better than she thought she did (for all the work she’s done to figure out her place, she’s still trying to figure out her heart). 

“Shhh, Michael, I’m right here,” he says, lips moving against her temple. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Except you will,” she points out, pedantic as ever. “Except you will eventually go back to Section 31 and whatever covert black-ops assignment Leland has planned for you. You’ll leave _Discovery_ and I may never see you again.”

“That’s not going to happen.” He angles her chin up, making her look at him. “Whatever happens, I’m not saying goodbye forever.” 

Michael knows better than to make promises about forever, and she opens her mouth to say as much but then she doesn’t. It won’t make her feel better; it would just wind her up. It won’t bring them the Red Angel; it will just send her to her death angry. It won’t solve any of these problems between Discovery and Section 31, between her and Ash, between any of them; it would just make them worse. 

It would be redundant to fight.

She shifts her focus to Ash. 

(He deserves more than that.)

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, Ash Tyler, I’m holding you to it.”

Ash grins, wide and wonderful, and her stomach clenches because she doesn’t remember the last time she’s seen that look on his face. Not since he came back to the _Discovery_ , possibly even before then.

(She hopes she can see it again).

...

“Commander Burnham, please report to Engineering immediately. Commander Burnham, please report to Engineering immediately.”

She closes her eyes tightly, rests her head against Ash’s now-damp shoulder. She knows what this means: Stamets has finished earlier than anticipated and she understands the rush, understands why he would want her to be there but that doesn’t mean she wants to leave. Suddenly all the fear she felt when she walked in the room- the fear that has faded away since she stepped foot into his room and his arms - suddenly rushes back in and she squeezes her eyes shut. 

“I’m sure they’ll want me on the Section 31 ship,” Ash says quietly.

Michael nods, not ready to open her eyes and see him for what might be the last time. 

“Hey.” Ash moves his hands from her back, cups her face. His thumb traces along her cheekbone. “Look at me, okay?”

She opens her eyes, blinks against the tears that are there. 

“I will be up there, making sure that nothing happens to you, all right? We’re going to end this thing once and for all and then when we come back, I’m going to tell you about my time in Qo’noS. Any question you have, I’ll answer. Okay?”

He is fierce, eyes alight with something she can’t quite give a name to but which she is sure comes from his time on Qo’noS. He is beautiful, her Ash Tyler (he was always hers, even when she pushed him away, she knows that now - )

She nods, and he kisses her once more.

There is no desperation in the way he moves his lips against hers, the way he holds her face in his hands. Michael never thought that she would be able to isolate emotions in a kiss but there is something about this - about the way he is both gentle yet not, the way that he kisses her that tells her this is not goodbye. 

(He deserves more than that.)

She kisses him back, hands coming to cover his before sliding to twist in the hair at the nape of his neck. She pulls him closer, pulls him to her and catches the groan he makes with her kiss. _This is not goodbye_ , she decides, _this is just see you later._

Ash breaks away this time, pressing his forehead against hers, and it’s comfortable, familiar, _theirs._

(They deserve more than that). 

“I better go,” she tells him. 

She leaves before him, brushing her fingers against her lips as she exits. 

  
  



End file.
